Wellington No as.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 54, 1 September 1896, Page 2

Wellington No as.

(From oar own correspondent.) THE POST OFFICE SAVI. N t»S tfAKK. The same return di^cl^es an even worse condition of affairs as regards of the people in the Savings Rank. This department was set up, as in England, to encourage thrift by offering opportunities to the people to invest their savings at a low rate of interest. Government improved on this idea by allowing any member of a family to deposit up to £200 and gave 3| per cent for the money. This opened the door for the capitalist to come in, with a family of five he could deposit £1000 and get interest for it and withdraw it when he liked. The terms were better than any bank would give him, for the bank would require a six or twelve months' fixed deposit to pay any interest. So the money rolled in in a flood and the accumulations increased from £2,441,876 in 1890 to £3,895,543 in 1895. Government was without doubt delighted, it was, in a sense, so much added revenue for them, and they have used it as such. Of this vast sum no less than £3,581,750 is in Government securities — in other words more roads, bridges, and harbor works, and only £313,793, or less than one twelfth, in a liquid state in the event of a demand by their depositors for their millions And a demand may be made unexpectedly some day for a large portion of it without any panic in the money market. A slight rise in the rate of interest, a boom iv gold mining shares, anything that offers a safe investment at more than 3£ per cent, and the depositors will roll up in swarms with their pass books for their money. Perhaps the Post Office will stand the run for about a week, perhaps not more than a day or two, and these who come too late may be offered what is left — such as securities of the River Board of North Rakaia, or Lands for Settlement debentures, or, better still, Oamaru Harbor Board scrip. Do not let it be supposed that there is anything in this note written with a view of alarming depositors. New Zealand is good enough for what it owes — yet. But is it not a scandal that these administrators, who are ever prating about the benefits they have conferred on the people by passing bills which they at once proceed to show their respect for by evading and disobeying forthwith, should be allowed to again go to the country to befool the electors with such a patently Uriah Heap cry as "Trust ms." A. more suitable motto for them would the lines written by Wordsworth on Bob Roy's grave. That hero may have had easy notions regarding the ownership of cattle, but he was no hypocrite : — " Because the good old rule, Samceth them, the simple plan That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can."